I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve
by LiteraryLesbian
Summary: Clare and Eli are crazy about eachother, but when K.C finds out that Jenna is pregant he starts to long for the time when life was simpler and he knew what the future held, back when he was with Clare. We all ask ourselves 'What if' sometimes.
1. It's cliche I know

**This is my very first story. Ever. So remember you were forewarned. Its a Degrassi fic, where Eli and Clare are in that new love, butterflies in your stomach, can't get enough if that one special person stage in a relationship that's amazing when it happens to you and slightly nauseating when you see people in it. But will Eli's temper and fighting be to much for Clare? And what will happen when Clare's ex and first love K.C starts causing problems between her and Eli when he thinks maybe he made a mistake when he choose Jenna and her drama over sweet innocent Clare. And is Clare even the same girl she was last year.**

**Chapter 1**

"_Eli&Clare "_

Clare loved the way their names looked next to each other in the margins of her worksheet, maybe it was because they both had a "L" as the second letter in their names or more likely it was because she was just plain crazy about Eli. Since they had finally gotten together after weeks of dancing around the subject they had been virtually inseparable. Lunches in the library giggling about nothing at all behind the Reference section, coffee after school at The Dot, spending all weekend wandering through the local bookstore. No one had ever looked at her the way he did, like he had never seen anything so fascinating in his whole life and if he looked away she would disappear and he would wake up to find it had all been merely a dream.

Snapping out of her daydreams, she stole a glance at the clock, scribbled down her last few answers and quickly erased her and Eli's names from her paper and turned it in a few seconds before the bell rang and the whole class made a mad dash for the hallway. Clare wove through the clusters of students, until she reached her locker. She was just starting to spin the dial towards the first number of her combination when a pair of hands snaked around her waist. For a split second her heart raced and she panicked, then she inhaled the distinct smell of Eli's body spray and his mint gum, and her heart sped up again, but this time for a whole new reason.

"Hiii", Clare silently cursed her voice for sounding so nervous and squeaky, before she spun around and locked eyes with Eli. He was smirking down at , undoubtedly he hadn't missed her jittery reaction and Clare immediately blushed, which only made him grin more. "_Hey_" he whispered their faces only inches from each other. Their romantic moment was shattered by the warning bell and Clare broke away from Eli's embrace, suddenly aware that people throughout the hallway had been watching them.

"We should get to...to uhhhh" Clare stammered losing her train of thought as Eli intertwined their hands together.

"English class maybe?" Eli finished for her sarcastically. Clare shot him a scathing playful look.

"Yeah that's the one" Clare retorted curtly, before her poor attempt at malice faded and she couldn't help but smile at how absurdly happy she was in that moment.

"Eli, we're going to be late"

"Oh yes one tardy, that's definitely going to have a severe impact upon your whole future and keep you from attending any kind of higher education"

"Well sorry we can't all be nonconformist like you"

"Hey I'm a rebel by nature, someone has to challenge the system"

"And by the system you're referring to the Degrassi bell schedule?"

"You see it as a merely a schedule , I see a violation of our human rights!" the last part of Eli's sentence was cut off by the the late bell.

"Whatever you say Braveheart" Clare giggled as they slid into their seats. Adam shot Clare a confused and slightly amused glance 'what?' she mouthed, Adam just smiled and shook his head.

K.C was laughing with some of the guys from the team in between classes when Clare slipped past him and walked up to her locker. She looked different in a good way, she had always looked good but now she seemed more grown up or something. Yeah he felt bad for about ditching her for Jenna, but he couldn't help how things happened. Being with Jenna was just so fun and easy, it was carefree, exactly what he wanted. He saw that emo new kid, Ian or something, come up behind her and Clare beam up at him as they walked off holding hands. K.C didn't really like the look of that kid , and he especially wasn't crazy about him and Clare being together.

His train of thought was interrupted by Jenna walking up to him. She didn't look that great, like she'd been crying or something.

"Hey babe, whats up?"

"K.C we need to talk, right _now_."


	2. but it's the price we pay

**Chapter 2**

It was surreal that a normal school day could continue, that everyone's lives could go on, when K.C's world had literally just come crashing down around his feet. He didn't even notice that Jenna was still standing in front of him waiting for him to say something, anything. She had disappeared along with everything else after those two words had spilled from her mouth and fallen flat in the air between them. Jenna's voice was a thousand miles away, and sounded like it was coming from under water.

"K.C, did you hear me? I'm-"

"I heard you" he whisperer.

He didn't need to hear her say it again. He wasn't sure he could take hearing it for a second time. Once was bad enough. _I'm pregnant_.

K.C was pretty sure that 10 letters had never done so much damage.

School had just let out with the usual swarm of stir crazy students bolting for the doors before the bell had even stopped ringing. Clare was crouched down at her locker putting away her Trigonometry work book, when she looked over and saw a familiar pair of steel toed combat boots. Smiling she looked up, taking in Eli's black skinny jeans, his worn Dead Hands T-shirt and meeting his black rimmed green eyes.

"Hey you" Clare exclaimed, happily accepting Eli's extended hand, her fingers grazing over his numerous skull rings as they interlocked their hands. Sliding into the passenger seat of Morty, Eli's cluttered hearse, Clare slid aside the stacks of comics and mix Cd's. "So are you and Adam still going to the movies?"

"That's the plan. Are you sure I can't convince you to go?" Eli sighed, knowing that he'd be in trouble with Adam if he brought Clare along to guys night, but wanting her to come anyway.

"No, I'm sure. Have fun watched ninjas beat up gladiators, or whatever it is that happens in your average action movie"

Pulling up to Clare's, house laughing at her description, Eli shut off the engine and turned to face Clare.

"Ok. Coffee at Dot 8 O'clock?"

"See you there"

Eli leaned in, one hand still holding Clare's,the other going to the back of her neck. He waited a second to fully take in her face up close. Her light blue eyes just beginning to close, her cheeks already slightly flushed, and her pink lips pursing as she leaned in, before closing the rest of the distance between them. There was that first few seconds when their lips just barely met and Clare could feel herself all but melting into Eli as he hungrily drew her even closer. A minute later they pulled away gasping for air, Clare's hair tousled from Eli his hands raking through it.

"I should probably go in" Clare whispered

Eli sighed and pulled her in for one more kiss before disentangling his hands from her hair and watching with regret as she climbed out of his car and walked up her front steps. Right before she disappeared inside her doorway Clare turned around and called out

"Eli. I'll see you tonight?'

"Absolutely" he replied smiling, before starting the car and driving off.

Clare closed the door and smiled, already wishing it was eight so she could be with Eli. She hadn't ever thought she would be the kind of girl who's life would revolve around a guy. Honestly she had always sort of felt sorry for those types of girls, like when Alli had gotten herself into all that pointless trouble with first Johnny then again this year with Drew. She had seen how her sister Darcy's life had spiraled out of control after getting mixed up with the wrong guys, and she just couldn't see how smart girls like that could let their life's go so wrong because of a bad guy who they had claimed they '_loved'. _It just didn't make any sense to such her. Clare knew that she wasn't the kind of girl who would let those sort of things happen, but it still scared her just a little how much Eli had become such a big part of her life in such a short time. She could handle having a boyfriend she was crazy about without losing herself. _Right? _


	3. to get the things we've wanted

I just got my first review and it made my day. Thank you for reading this. I'm probably suppose to put some kind of disclaimer in here so here it is. I don't own Degrassi in any way. I do happen to own a tube of lipstick in a violent shade of purple. But that's all.

Chapter 3

Jenna was alone. OK technically she wouldn't be alone for at least another 7 months. But K.C was gone, and she was sure that she had never felt more lonely in her whole life. Not even when her mom left her and her older brother with out warning. She had hoped that K.C just needed some time. Time to realize that he loved her, and that when she had told him she was pregnant it wasn't the final nail in the coffin of his life. She hoped he could step up and be a father, but either way she meant what she had said.

He almost didn't hear what Jenna had said as he was walking away from her, but he had.

"_I'm going to keep it." _the words were crashing into every other thought in his brain as he walked aimlessly down the street. He just needed to tell someone else, someone who would listen without telling him the right thing to do, what he had to do. Someone who really knew him. And for the first time in what felt like years but was really just the last few hours, something went right. Because that person was sitting in The Dot alone right now as he walked by. The person that K.C had once told everything to. Clare Edwards.

Clare had gotten to The Dot early, and now was sitting at a table by the window totally engrossed in her book. She hadn't heard anyone approach her, but when the chair across from her was pulled out she smiled, looking up expecting to see Eli.

"Hey, you're early. How was the- K.C?" Clare couldn't hide her surprise when she looked up and saw her ex boyfriend sitting down in front of her. Lets just say that of all the people who she expected to approach her K.C hadn't been on that list for a long time.

"Uhmm...Hi." K.C could hear the confusion and surprise in Clare's awkward greeting, but he was too preoccupied by all the battered and broken mess swimming around in his mind to connect that he was the cause of it.

"Clare." That was all he could manage for a greeting. His voice sounding grated and strained to his own ears.

"Do you need something?" Clare questioned, remembering a time when they hadn't needed a reason to just want to be together, but knowing that it wasn't like that for them anymore. That all shreds of their friendship had been lost in the wreckage of their failed relationship.

"I just needed to...I just...wanted someone to..." K.C's stunted words trailed off, he didn't know how to even begin and suddenly he wasn't so sure he wanted to tell Clare. Looking up he met Clare's confused and questioning eyes and he was surprised to notice that he could see them so clearly.

"Where's your glasses?" The stupid question slipped out of his mouth before he could even process how irrelevant it was at the moment. Clare's soft innocent laugh spilled over his ears like a thousand tiny bells caught in a breeze. Thinking back he couldn't remember the last time he had been the cause of that beautiful sound and it made him feel even more horrible.

"I got laser eye surgery, I haven't worn my glasses for months." Clare stated in that matter of fact way she had. Jenna would throw a fit it he failed to notice she was wearing new shoes, but Clare wasn't even phased that it had taken him months to notice the absence of a foreign plastic object taking up half her face. He'd missed that about her.

"K.C? You were asking me something." Clare's voice pierced through his muddled nostalgia and brought him back to the reason her was here in the first place.

"Right. I uhhhmm...well..." the words were right there swimming in front of him, but he just couldn't find it in himself to say them and shatter a part of his life he had forgotten even existed. "I just wanted to know how you were." K.C tried to cover up the truth but as soon as he said those words he found he wanted to hear the answer to them.

"Oh, okay. I'm good. I'm really good actually. How are you?"

"Thats great. I'm-uhh, you know its been one of those days"

" I'm sorry." Clare's voice was laced with sincerity.

"Do you want to talk about it" Clare asked not just because that's what you're suppose to say but also because she found her self wondering what was making him act so strange, and maybe because she really did still care a little.

"Not anymore" K.C flashed her that mega watt smile that use to brighten up even the most boring of their AP lectures and make her forget what she was thinking about. Clare was surprised to find that it hadn't lost all of its effect on her.

"So what are you reading these days" K.C changed the subject, glancing towards the book Clare had been reading which now lay forgotten on the table.

"Actually you would probably find this so interesting" Clare started telling K.C about the different plots and characters as he listened intently engrossed in the fictional world she was describing to him. Feeling himself get sucked into this new story and away from his own.

And just like that they were falling into the familiar rhythm together like nothing had ever changed.


	4. and the things we've left behind

**Ok I'm sorry if Eli sounds a little bit like a jerk in the beginning and kind of possessive towards the end, I'm just trying to show all the different perspectives of whats going on. And Eli can be a little bit pretentious sometimes, but I love that about him. Sorry if this is kinda short. And thank you for reading. **

Ch 4

The first thing he saw was Clare smiling and laughing, and that sight alone was beautiful enough to nearly take Eli's breath away. Then he saw what he could only assume was the cause of her good mood and it was some dumb jock he had seen around school but never really gave a second thought. Until now. Now that he was sitting across from his girlfriend smiling like the idiot he probably was Eli was definitely noticing him as more then one of the faceless at Degrassi who in all honestly will peak in high school and spend the rest of their lives reliving their glory days of football games, homecoming parades and cheerleader girlfriends. Eli had to wonder why Clare was wasting her time talking to him? She was just too nice to everyone. It was one of the many things he loved about her, but sometimes he couldn't see how she could stand it. Seriously now she was stuck listening to some meat head ramble on about touchdowns or whatever it is he had deemed important enough to waste his remaining brain cells on.

Deciding he needed to go in and save Clare from the boredom she must be suffering he walked into The Dot and strolled over to her table.

"Hey beautiful, sorry I'm late" Eli said loud enough for whats his name to hear and swooped down to plant a kiss on Clare's cheek.

Clare face blushed a deep shade of pink, mostly because of Eli's presence and his show of affection, partly because K.C was there to witness it and a little bit for a reason she couldn't place but made her feel all jumbled up and confused. Dismissing that last feeling, Clare directed her smile up at Eli.

"Hey you, how was the movie?" Clare shot a glance at K.C who was sitting at the only other seat at her table and back at Eli who was standing there shooting angry looks in K.C's direction, that didn't go unnoticed by him.

"Yeah I should probably get going, I'll see you later Clare, it was _really _great talking to you." and with that K.C got up and walked out the door.

"What was that about?" Eli asked sliding into the now vacant chair across from Clare.

"What K.C? We were just talking, catching up and stuff..." Clare trailed off vaguely.

"How do you know him?" Eli tried not to sound jealous but wasn't entirely convincing.

"Ohh, uhmmm, we just use to have a lot of classes together last year and we were both friends with Conor and Ali." Without even really meaning to Clare had skipped over one important detail in her and K.C's relationship. The relationship part. As guilt washed over her she considered just coming clean now before Eli found out and thought she was hiding something, but Eli had already moved on to telling her all about the movie he had just seen and Clare couldn't find it in herself to bring it up again.

Eli was more then surprised to find out that Clare actually knew that guy. And even more shocked to find out that he could of ever been in the same classes that Clare got into.

Trying not to seem too jealous Eli launched into telling Clare about the movie, but couldn't seem to shake the image of them laughing and smiling at each other from his mind. Clare could be friends with other guys right? It sounded perfectly reasonable but Eli still hated even the idea of Clare being friends with K.C.

K.C was back to walking aimlessly around town again, it was almost like the last half an hour hadn't happened. But it had and now K.C realized something he couldn't believe he had failed to notice these last few months. He missed Clare. He missed the way she could get lost in a book, and how when she was telling you about it she would absent mindlessly start fiddling with her hair. But most of all he missed that person he was when he was with her. Like the last 6 months hadn't happened. Like all the drama with his basketball coach and his mom had never happened, like Jenna had never said those 3 words further wrecking his life.

Maybe if he could just get back there the world could start making sense again. If he could just get her back then maybe everything would feel right once more.


End file.
